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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
A Floral Aurora Corona
Explanation: Few auroras show this level of detail. Above , a standard digital camera captured a particularly active and colorful auroral corona that occurred last week above Alberta , Canada . With a shape reminiscent of a flower , the spectacular aurora had an unusually high degree of detail . The vivid green and purple auroral colors are caused by high atmospheric oxygen and hydrogen reacting to a burst of incoming electrons . Many photogenic auroras have been triggered from a solar wind stream that recently passed the Earth. The auroras were unexpected because the initiating Sun has been unusually quiet of late.
Note: An APOD editor will review great space images this Saturday night at Ft. Wilkins, Michigan.
| Date | July 28, 2009 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Zoltan Kenwell (Infocus Imagery) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |